When lightning strikes the staff: Ars readers react

Also the Xbox One was announced this week.

This week, Ars covered Microsoft's Xbox One reveal, talked about the value of studying a theory with no immediate practical value in the real world, and gawked at the man who created 77Tb of traffic on this Verizon FiOS connection. Oh yeah, and our Technical Director, Jason Marlin, was hit by lightning.

Xbox oneders

Gaming editor Kyle Orland was in Redmond, WA for the Xbox One reveal and sent us back photos. Our first up-close look at the Xbox One, contained 13 photos of the console, the included Kinect, and the new controller. Ars readers took to the comments to share their opinions about the design.

(Some reader came to share their opinions about having opinions about the design, too. axia777 wrote, "I don't care what it looks like. Tell me what the system specs are. Processor? Type of RAM?" Several commenters shared his sentiment. Others disagreed, like RockDaMan who wrote, "I do. Aesthetic and design are important features. Not the most important, mind you, but important nonetheless.")

A lot of Ars readers like Sifaka didn't care for the look at all: "I dislike the two tone gray/black and the odd tire track pattern. It has a cheap automotive feel to it, like if Checker auto parts created an entertainment console. It would go well with a Mad Max style man cave, but most of us could never get away with that." notoriousKTR felt similarly: "the alternating matte and gloss finish on both console and controller looks pretty bad and cheapens the look."

Not everyone was outright offended by the design. tayhimself wrote that it "Looks like a Bang & Olufsen VCR," to which Scorp1us wrote, "Retro is cool. When I first saw this, I only saw a the front and I was like, this is seriously cool. They made it to mount above or below your TV. Like 2-3" deep. Because that's what we really need. Less boxes in the cabinet. More on walls. I'm serious. I would love to get my receiver as a flat version as well as everything else so I can get rid of the cabinet. Cabinets made sense when your TV was 18" deep. No TV is that size anymore."

Real Research

Matt von Hippel wrote about earning a PhD studying a theory called N=4 super Yang-Mills in the article Earning a PhD by studying a theory that we know is wrong. The article talked a little bit about the basics of N=4 super Yang-Mills, but on a grander scale it talked about the reasons we work studying physics with no immediate practical application in the real world.

Lots of PhDs and math and science fans came out of the woodwork to offer their thoughts. "I have always said that theoretical physics is just math that sometimes resembles real life...and when it does, it is pretty cool," Madlyb wrote.

Smorkian furthered the idea that studying the obscure leads to cooler concrete innovations, "I fail to see why someone would object to a theory that is not 'true,'" he wrote, "'True' I suppose in this case means 'conforms to observable data' but this is largely irrelevant—is it logically consistent, that's the question. If mathematics limited itself to conjectures that were only demonstrably true in a physical sense we'd be stuck in the body of knowledge from a few hundred years ago. And it'd be horribly horribly boring."

And SBD suggested that it's common for non-scientists to be skeptical of work that has no real-world application, "Going beyond physics, it seems that most people just have a misunderstanding of what PhD level research actually is and what it accomplishes. I work full time as an engineer and work on my PhD in my spare time, and people seem confused when I tell them that my PhD has very little applicability to the real world or my day-to-day work, in spite of my field of work being very tangible and 'real'. I design my scientific work to purposefully go outside the bounds of useful engineering work, to illuminate the variables and nuances of a useful, engineered system that is otherwise difficult to discern the mechanisms behind."

The valiant effort award goes to PunditGuy, who wrote, "I appreciate that right about the time I started thinking that this sounds like the 'Dueling Banjos' of math, the author goes an gives us a useful analogy. I love these types of articles, even if they're way over my head. And now I might get an extra joke or two next season on Big Bang Theory. #englishmajor" PunditGuy, you seem like a great person, but we can't condone your terrible taste in prime time TV. Consider yourself on notice.

Drive-time traffic

This week a poster on DSLreports.com claimed that he had discovered the limits of Verizon's "unlimited" FiOS consumer data plan when he got a call from a Verizon representative for logging 77Tb of traffic in a month. Sean Gallagher followed up with the guy in FiOS customer discovers the limits of “unlimited” data: 77TB a month. Technically, Verizon didn't ask him to move to another plan because he was using too much bandwidth, but rather because he violated the plans terms of service by operating servers on the network.

Commenters reacted to the news with a mix of derision ("What was this guy thinking?") and respect ("Verizon is right to kick him off, but good on him for trying").

Bluefinger brought some perspective to the conversation: "It's actually rather common to see 'No servers please' on the TOS of broadband connections, though in the UK, as far as I'm aware, most 'business' connections involve requiring a leased line as opposed to more standard connections, which cost LOTS. I would *love* to see the server thing be a bit more relaxed, though I can see how it can get silly. As this article illustrates so succinctly. P.S. I'm totally jelly."

DrazzleDrazzle also noticed the photo of this guy's elaborate setup, calling it "gratuitous server porn." Many commenters were surprised it took Verizon as long as it did to call this guy. Tundro Walker explained with some first-hand experience:

In the telco world, we call this a "right-sizing" call. A good telco will "right-size" you down to a plan that's less expensive in order to keep you longer. A bad telco will let customers stay on plans way over-bloated for what they need, but will breathe down the neck of folks like this to "right-size" them up the profit chain.

I'm really surprised it took them so long to call.

And kudo's for this guy actually utilizing the service he paid for. Most folks get this "unlimited" stuff, then hardly use it. It's a waste of money for them. But, yeah, this guy was definitely abusing the ToS on this. Normally don't side with Verizon, but it sounds like they handled the phone call in a very professional manner. They could have just shut his service down and waited for him to call.

MrG3, on the other hand, thinks he could have sweet-talked his way out of a slap on the wrist from Verizon: "I would have told the Verizon person that every night I backed up the Internet onto floppies." You're sneaky and we like that MrG3.

Marlin is down to 8 lives

Sometimes the best story is the one you can't predict. On Wednesday, after a conference call with other Ars staffers, Technical Director Jason Marlin was struck by lightning in his North Carolina house. He recounted the crazy tale in his post I was struck by lightning yesterday—and boy am I sore. Lots of commenters told him to get to a doctor immediately (he did make an appointment), and others had their own lightning-strike stories.

"I just moved to Asheville myself, and was impressed with those storms that rolled through yesterday," wrote atom. "Glad you're ok."

At my brother house (we are talking about 3rd world country here) he connect the modem from the pc to the telephone line, and the wirings (modem line) goes under the rubber flooring ( in Malay we call it 'tikar getah').

It was a thunderstorm so I just take a pillow and lie on the floor (in 3rd world country, we does not bring shoes into the house, so this is normal. people put their head on a pillow, the body on a rubber flooring on top of a hard cement floor, watching tv all the time.

Anyway it already blackout (the main fuse switch kicks) and I could feel the lightning were close. Suddenly I saw bright red (try closing your eyes, and look toward a light. then cover your face with your palm. you will notice the difference between dark and bright red, except this is VERY bright red.

I totally felt like having a defibrillator to my chest. I just get up, walk to my bed, and contemplate about life and death, before falling to sleep.

I never went to the doctor (thanks to the link you provide, I guess I follow that 'if you look fine you are ok' myth) but these days I'm not quite sure if it can damage your brain to a certain extent you have a hard time studying and remembering.

Anyway, the modem fried.

We also had a comment from Zeus, who's been a member since 2000 and has no doubt waited for a moment like this for the last 13 years. "Sorry about that; it's allergy season on Olympus," he offered.

And Editor at Large Jacqui Cheng teased us with this comment: "In all honesty, I'm not actually sure being struck by lightning is crazier than some of [Jason's] stories from Atlanta." Great, Ars is going to have to set up a separate blog for Jason's stories now.

Seriously, we're glad Jason is alive and well, and that he's tough enough to show Drake that YOLO doesn't apply to everyone.

Many years ago, when I was 13ish, I was too into what I was doing on my PPC to respect the flashing and thunder around me to turn off my computer and unplug my power strips. There was a nearby strike and I saw sparks shooting out of the back of my dad's 28.8 modem like it was a sparkler. I powered everything down, and tested everything after the storm was over. The modem was toast, but everything else worked fine, even the computer it was connected to.

From that point on I'll always turn off and unplug power strips if a significant lighting storm is heading my way, or if I think one may hit while I'm away or sleeping.

Does Ars anticipate that its health insurance offering to employees will cover Marlin's doctor visit?

That's what I was thinking when he declined to go to the doctor. Either he has no health insurance or a high deductible ... or he's just a tough guy who can shake off a lightening strike.

From the sound of things, by the time the ambulance arrived, he was already feeling okay (just sore and maybe a little adrenaline-high). Barring a history of cardiac problems, anything bad that could have happened to his body should have already been obvious by that point. A shock is highly unlikely to have cause an internal bleed, and the EMTs would be able to tell if his heartbeat was irregular.

In that situation, I can see turning down an ambulance ride (which is really damn expensive, sometimes even on insurance) to the emergency department (also really damn expensive) to sit there for a few hours, get scanned and then likely sent home.

However, it's absolutely worth following up on with his family doctor. There could be long-term issues for his muscles or nervous system (not to mention his wits!) that they'll want to keep an eye on for a while, so there's no permanent damage.

(Of course, this is not formal medical advice, I am not a doctor... but I did stay at a Holiday Inn Express last night work in an emergency department for the last three years.)

I was around 12, and my Dad and I were flying a control line airplane. Well, I was flying, he was the ground crew. For those that don't know, a control line plane is one that is controlled by 2 metal cables that attach from the plane to the pilot, and the plane flies in a circular path around the pilot in the center. A storm was coming but we had time for one more go. Or so we thought. After a minute or so I found myself on the ground, my plane in wreckage. Lightning had struck somewhere very close by and induced a charge in the metal wires. Knocked me to the ground and into another dimension for a few seconds.

That was the first time. Next hit: We were at this lake swimming. Storm was coming but was far away. My friend and I were under water looking at each other with our underwater masks. Then BAM. Lightning had struck the nearby bathhouse. Felt like a mule had kicked me right between the shoulder blades. When I surfaced, all those people getting the hell out of there had rooster tails kicked up as they were swimming to the shore faster than they ever had before. About 10-20 people were in the water at the time. Everyone was hit.

Ready for this? Third time: Same lake, same time period. This time everyone had taken shelter in the bath house as a storm approached. Several people, myself included, were sitting on this large metal swing in the breezeway. BAM. Lightning struck the bathhouse. Everyone on the swing took a serious hit, mostly in the legs. That was really painful, but no one was seriously hurt.

Oh, I forgot one. It wasn't a hit but it was certainly impressive. My wife and I got home in the early evening, almost dark. A very active thunderstorm was underway so we waited in the driveway beside the house, slid back the sunroof and watched the show. Didn't have to wait long. This blinding flash and explosion froze the raindrops on our retina and gave us ringing in our ears. Sparks fell from the sky within 100 feet of the house. And my ham radio antenna was GONE. It used to be attached to the roof of the house. (A single 20-foot fiberglass pole, and yes, it was grounded.) I went inside to check on things. House was full of smoke so I called the fire department on my cell phone. My landline was not only fried, but also ALL of my radio equipment and all but one landline phone. As for the phone line, every single copper conductor throughout the entire house was just a charred residue of where the cables once were. I'm glad we didn't have an umbrella in the car or this one might have been the final #4.

the closest i have been to a lightning strike was just outside the house when i was probably under 12 years old, one moment i was close to the window next moment i was at the other side of the room after the lightning had hit outside as it was loud and very bright, that cida scared the hell out of me i guess